Boiling bunnies: Natascha McElhone is set to take on iconic Fatal Attraction role on stage

The classically trained British actress Natascha McElhone has won the role of the scorned mistress in the new stage adaptation of Fatal Attraction, the film that made Glenn Close a star.

Even 27 years after its release, Fatal Attraction’s very title remains synonymous with a dangerously vengeful woman, and a man who’s made a big, big mistake.

The picture depicted Michael Douglas as Dan Gallagher, a happily married businessman who has a one-night stand with Alex Forrest (Close).

But Forrest feels used when Gallagher leaves her, and goes into bunny boiler mode, making life hell for him and his family.

One of the scariest — and most famous — scenes in Adrian Lyne’s film involves a pet rabbit being simmered on a stove.

Natascha was in Hollywood working on the final season of the hit U.S. TV drama Californication (in which she stars with David Duchovny) when I bumped into her at an awards party.

She said her lips were sealed about the play. ‘I can’t tell you anything about it,’ she said, smiling prettily.

However Robert Fox, a producer of the play, along with the TRH Productions and Patrick Ryecart, confirmed my scoop about the play, which starts previews at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket on March 8, with an official first night on March 25.

‘I couldn’t be more thrilled to have Natascha in that role,’ Fox told me yesterday.

He said James Dearden (the film’s writer) had adapted his screenplay for the stage but added: ‘It’s completely its own piece for the theatre’.

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Fox also revealed that: ‘There will be a bunny on stage . . . there will be a very well prepared bunny on stage every night, with its own, very selective dressing room.’ And Robert Jones’s set will include a kitchen with a working stove.

Close always felt guilty about contributing to the stigma surrounding mental illness, and has said that, given the chance to do it all again, would play Alex’s character differently.

Fox said the play, being directed by Trevor Nunn, ‘is much more sympathetic to Alex, and Dearden has created a much more balanced version. You feel she’s not the complete loon that she is in the film.

Famous role: Glenn Close's career launched with her role in Fatal Attraction from 1987 where she played Michael Douglas's scorned mistress

‘Dearden’s ending was re-written and re-shot for the film.That bum ending has gone now, and Alex is portrayed very fairly.’

When the movie came out it scared many married men half to death. There was also fierce debate about how Alex and Dan were portrayed.

She is shown as a psychotic homewrecker who deserves her sticky end; he plays away — and gets away with it.

Fox insisted the stage version would be ‘more balanced’.

Now the Bunny Boiler has been cast, after a search on both sides of the Atlantic, decisions are about to be made about who will play the cheating husband and his saintly yet ‘mess with me and my family and I’ll kill you!’ wife.

It’s likely to become the must-see play of the season.

Steve McQueen's Global recognition

There were fantastic scenes as Steve McQueen, his cast and producers entered the Fox studio Golden Globes after-party.

A
roar went up as Steve ‘The Geezer’ walked into the huge marquee,
holding his Golden Globe best dramatic picture award aloft and flanked
by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o and Benedict
Cumberbatch.

But I was struck by how the biggest cheers came from a woman who normally just gets on with her job very quietly.

That
would be Tessa Ross, who’s been in McQueen’s corner from the beginning,
when Film4 fully financed his first feature Hunger, before investing in
Shame and now 12 Years A Slave. Brad Pitt helped with a lot of the 12
Years budget, but Ross was vital behind the scenes, helping McQueen
shape the script and the film’s final cut. ‘I run everything past Tessa,
and she’s always there,’ the director said.

I
also loved seeing Chiwetel, who I remember hearing about when he was
still training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA),
getting the recognition he deserves for his quietly powerful performance
in 12 Years.

I’m
disappointed Oscar voters didn’t go for Emma Thompson’s sublime work in
Saving Mr Banks, but it’s been an incredible year, full of cracking
movies. It would have been cool if Robert Redford (for All Is Lost) and
Oscar Isaac (for Inside Llewyn Davies) had been nominated, but I don’t
believe that takes anything away from their two landmark performances.

I’ve
been mistaken for some pretty interesting people in my time. Forest
Whitaker’s wife Keisha Nash Whitaker and I were laughing the other day
about how, a few years back, when her husband was starring as Idi Amin
in The Last King Of Scotland, some folks got the two of us confused (Me
and Forest, I hasten to add . . . not me and Idi).

‘Ignorance,’ she said, charitably.

And
then there was the guy playing General B.F. Naked in the smash hit Book
Of Mormon at the Prince of Wales theatre in London.

Peas in a pod: Baz Bamigboye has been mistaken for 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen...

... as well as actor Forest Whitaker and the Book of Mormon's Chris Jarman

At the opening
night party, one of the producers, thinking I was Chris Jarman, who
plays the effing and blinding warlord, congratulated me on my top
performance.

Last weekend, I
was at a Golden Globe party when a reporter from the US news agency AP
sidled over and asked how I’d follow 12 Years A Slave. I looked her in
the eye and said I would be making an epic film called 13 Years A White
Man.

Her jaw dropped. It
fell even further when I politely told her that I wasn’t the film’s
director, Steve McQueen.

No disrespect to Steve, but couldn’t someone mistake me for Idris Elba? Just once?